Recrudesce
by illogical squeeks
Summary: The only thing worse than Cutler Beckett is a Cutler Beckett zombie, I’m sure you’ll agree. Though he doesn’t approve of the term “zombie”, as he finds it racist. Another adventure is brewing, and even the dead want a piece of it. Post AWE.
1. Waiting Rooms

Chapter One: Waiting Rooms.

Sipping from teacups in a backdrop of white. _It could be worse_. He'd been dead for six days, as far as he could tell. Six. Now, that was quite a nice number, really. Two times three, you know. Even numbers were good. There was something very rounded about them, something that he could trust. Yes.

Cutler Beckett had wondered what death would be like—he knew that everyone faced it, eventually, although he himself had been hoping to avoid it for a good few decades yet. But you couldn't have everything. And there was something about death that reminded him—in a way—of his office at the E.I.T.C... there was paperwork, for a start. Oh, what unearthly amounts of paperwork! For once, though, he was not in charge of going over every ledger and looking back at accounts so that he could check that all receipts had been duly signed and that no legal action could be taken if... if... it was at this moment that his trail of thought (which had already been leading to a rather dismal end: death can do that to you) was interrupted by the appearance of that strange gentleman who had first talked to him when he had died.

"I'm awfully sorry for all of the waiting, Mister Beckett, C," he said, sounding a little flustered, flipping through a lot of paper that was stuck onto a little piece of wood. _A clipboard_. He was always referred to as "Mister Beckett, C" here, though he didn't mind an awful lot, he supposed. Apart from one minor detail.

"Lord Beckett, C... well, _Lord Beckett_ will do," he said, straightening his frock coat with as much decency as he could possess within a moment that a man who looked like a bird watcher crossed with a serial killer was in charge of him. To be honest, he had never acted the subordinate to _anyone_, and he did not wish to begin any time soon. But that was just how it worked.

"Yes, well," the man said, quite bluntly ignoring him, as he always did. "You did choose a bit of a bad time to die-."

"_Choose_?"

"-as we're having a big re-organization, here," the man finally seemed to find the correct page amongst his block of paper and his eyes flickered over it, Beckett's indignant expression utterly lost on him. The silly bespectacled man seemed to notice nothing in front of his long nose, apart from his little pieces of paper, of course. Beckett looked around the place that he had been dwelling for an estimated six days—although there really was no way to tell, because nothing changed, here. Nothing moved because nothing _was_. It was an endless stretch of white: Beckett had gone for a long schlep through the place and had come across no borders and no edges and no walls. It simply went on, infinitely, or at least indefinitely. Except, the way things were organized around here, it probably just went on _until further notice_.

It was an empty and unloved place, though it could make tea appear from nowhere.

"What, exactly, is 'here'?" Beckett asked in his usual self-important manner. "Death? You're re-organizing _death_?" Admittedly, the organization had been rather awful. Upon arrival, he had had to sit around in a waiting room for an _unearthly_ amount of time (unearthly was right, though, he supposed: wherever this was, it wasn't earth). There had been blue chairs made of hideously scratchy felt. There had been a glass coffee table. There had been a plastic potted plant, which had come across to Beckett as a desperate attempt to bring an almost manically cheerful tone to the room. Despite it being a room full of people who had just died. And behind a massive desk, there had been a woman with bleached-blonde hair, nattering obnoxiously onto a phone, staring at the screen of her computer like a blind woman.

"_What is this?_" Beckett had demanded from the woman sitting next to him. He was soaked to the bone, and his left arm and the entire left portion of his back was furiously burnt, although he was somehow immune to the pain. The woman besides him had a knitting needle rammed into her chest, which he decided not to ask about.

"_It's like waiting to see a dentist, but with no magazines to read..._" she had said, looking around herself. He hadn't understood much of that, but he understood the next part: "_Sounds like hell to me._"

It had indeed been just a little bit hellish, especially as they'd all had to take a number and wait. He had been number _eighteen_. In no way did he believe that he was the eighteenth person in the world to die, so this lead him to believe that there were more of these waiting rooms, perhaps people were filtered into them separately. He saw nobody that he recognized, though the people in there certainly were an odd mishmash. There was the knitting-needle woman, as well as a man dressed in a tuxedo with several holes in his body, some sort of ancient warrior wearing a large tea towel with spears sticking out of him. He supposed that the theme for this room was something along the lines of "non-natural causes". Then he'd gotten up to the desk and had to have his name put on a lot of lists and have a few filing cabinets be searched through and his _appointment time_ (?!) re-checked. And then he'd had to sign something. "_What happens if I don't sign it? Do I not count as dead?_" he'd asked, dryly. Her resulting blank look had scared him into signing (a look devoid of any sentient intelligence at all, he was certain).

And then he'd been dumped into the white space, while the bespectacled man ("Call-me-Hugh," he had said in a perfectly perfunctory manner) told him that, _regretfully_, the system was going through a bit of a _crunch_ at the moment (sir) and that he would have to wait for a short while, sincere apologies, goodbye. And so his six-day stay in the endless whiteness had started. Still, now it was over: where would he be heading? What was going to happen next?

"Re-organizing death... yes, that is a way of putting it," Call-me-Hugh said, shooting him a smile that was reminiscent of plastic being stretched over a boomerang, forced and false. "We have a system here. The system is important. You would know about the legend of Davy Jones and his Locker, yes?" Call-me-Hugh nodded at the end of the sentence, as is thinking that this would automatically mean that he agreed with him, "Well, now that it is being—shall we say _properly maintained_ again—there has been a sudden _influx_ of people from your- let's say your _era_ spilling into the system. I think that it was the, the _kick_ we needed to get things running smoothly again." Beckett found himself detesting this man merely from the way that he spoke, and _empathised_ the _wrong_ words.

"Yes, well, my heartiest congratulations," Beckett said, impatiently, "But what happens to me now? Where am I supposed to go? What happens _next_?" Beckett didn't like bombarding people with questions—he found that, often, they only answered the final one. He had known a few people in his time who fired questions like bullets, allowing no time for answers before blathering on again, lost in their own pig-headed haze. Call-me-Hugh gave a polite little cough, one that he did not need as there was nothing stuck in his throat, but was thrown in anyway.

Beckett wondered if he had trained hard to be this hateable.

"Step into my _office_—so to speak," Call-me-Hugh responded evenly, and then his surroundings melted away like wet paint dripping down a canvas, and Beckett found himself in the most jam-packed _office_ that he had ever come across. There were about a dozen desks in neat rows across the middle of the room, some of them overflowing with mountainous amounts of paper, other ones looking a little more organized. Dishevelled men—each one spectacled, dressed in attire similar to Call-me-Hugh—sat at some desks, whilst others were empty. Plastic things (telephones, they were _telephones_) rang loudly, their grinding tones sounding bitter and misanthropic.

Along every wall, there were filing cabinets—the room stretched quite far down, the size of one of the larger decks on a ship—and the grey filing cabinets gleamed from every single place that he looked. Bespectacled men were leafing through some of them, and the banging and grinding of their drawers being quickly pulled open and pushed closed echoed around the room. There was conversation, too, all of it in the harried yet businesslike manner of a journalist behind their deadline. Beckett wondered if death had always been this shambolic. _It seems that the blight of incompetence shall always afflict mankind_, he thought, sniffily.

"I died at sea, and according to legend, that puts me in the Locker," Beckett said.

"Ye-es... it does..." Beckett did not like that drawn out vowel. It sounded like Call-me-Hugh was hiding something. Something that would go down like a lead balloon. "You may have noticed that the time continuum of this place after death is a little, shall we say, _skewed_, however: over here, time doesn't really _matter_, as such."

"Of course time matters," Beckett said, frowning. "We can't have everything happening at once, can we?"

"There is time here, but it is different to the time in the living world," Call-me-Hugh sounded rehearsed, even bored: Beckett imagined that he had had to give this speech many times before. "Time in death is not _after_ time in life; it is _next to_ it. Stretched _alongside_ the living world, all of it the same."

"You mean everyone who ever has and ever will die arrives here at the same time?" Beckett asked; well, if that didn't sound jolly disorganized, just what did?

"Not _quite_," Call-me-Hugh gave a patronizing little smile. "It's a hard concept to grasp, but we systematize time into little... _packages_, and take a little from all around, if you know what I mean. We take small portions from each century, and then go back to each one." Beckett thought for a moment of little parcels filled with time. It sounded quite useful. "So that we have—let's say—an _even spread_, across an entire timeline, we take bits at one hundred years intervals."

"Please, do elaborate," Beckett said—Call-me-Hugh looked at him for a moment. It was impossible to tell whether he was being sarcastic or serious. He looked earnest enough, so he continued.

"We group people into little, ah, _clusters_, so that they can be sent off to their correct placements in groups. It's more efficient, you see, saves more energy." Beckett was just looking at him, now. He didn't really need to say anything. "Of course, it takes a lot of energy to get to the land after death," Call-me-Hugh said, his smile now looking more like a ladder in a pair of tights; it was stretched across his face in a slightly disfigured manner, there nonetheless, but looking more like a blemish than a sign of genuine friendliness. "You don't expect the land of the dead to be right next to the land of the living, do you? We have to keep them separate; _very_ separate."

"Why?" Beckett asked. He felt a little ridiculous, asking the question favoured by so many four-year-olds, and wished that he had said something else that was a little bit wordier. But the answer he received was still satisfactory.

"So that they don't come back, of course."

* * *

**NB**: Why hello. Illogical Squeeks has re-landed. I don't think anyone will remember who I am, actually. I used to write quite a lot on here, but then real life ate me alive and besides, not many people were really reading my stuff at that point. Perhaps my plotlines just became _too_ weird. Doesn't look like I learn from my mistakes, does it? Please, if you are interested, do stick around. And feel free to drop me a line. Response gauaranteed 99.9% of the time (though not necessarily a sane one).

**Disclaimer**: disclaimed!

**NEXT TIME:** _James was beginning to realize how much he disliked the word_ batch_. He, Davy Jones, Cutler Beckett and Jack Sparrow were hardly the same make of muffin. So to speak._


	2. Seven Stories

Chapter Two: Seven Stories.

It was quite literally a box room. It was a room the general shape and size of a box. The floor was cold tile, the walls flawed concrete, and ceiling the same tile that was on the floor—if the room were to be turned upside-down, nobody would notice a difference. This worried James Norrington. This worried James Norrington a lot. He felt that that was the direction in which madness lay, rooms that could be spun upside-down and then rightway-round again without anyone knowing a thing about it. He had been here since Call-me-Dave had smile apologetically, said something about there being an unfortunate gap within their schedules that they had not, _ah, foreseen_, and that he would have to wait a short while.

As far as he could tell, he had been waiting a long while. This was while he waited for certain people to die, so that he and his_ cluster_ could all go on to the land of the dead (whatever form that my take) together. He had taken a peek at the list, and had been rather saddened to see that Swann E and Swann W had been on there. And a bit worried that Beckett C, Mercer D, Jones D, Barbossa H, and Sparrow J were there. The names "Jones D" had been faintly underlined. And there had been a line through "Swann W", for what he felt was an obvious reason.

"Ever so sorry for the waiting." Call-me-Dave appeared in a manner that startled James, and he blinked at the man before scrambling up from the floor to stand up straight. "You did yourself no favours by dying earlier than we anticipated, you know. But it shouldn't be long now until the rest join us." _All of them?_ James thought, _What on Earth is going on in the land of the living?_ After a pause, he added to these thoughts, _Why does he keep on acting like I decided it would be jolly good fun to die before my time?_

"How did I die before 'anticipated'?" James asked. "Do you assume that everyone in the world is going to die of natural causes, aged around seventy?"

"No, of course not. We have a system here." Call-me-Dave gave that pressing smile of his. "The system is important. The thing is, you were all destined to die at the same time, at that battle."

"Battle?" James asked, wearily.

"Oh, but of course. You weren't there." Call-me-Dave's smile was an ugly, sympathetic curve that was clearly there for punching, if not at least stapling shut. James wondered if Call-me-Dave and his entourage of Call-me-X people were all dead, and had been given some sort of higher ranking or other for some reason. Probably for being invariably irksome. "We all know when people are going to die; it's predetermined. Some would call it _fate_."

"It can't have been very well predetermined if I somehow managed to die before I was supposed to," James said, feeling a little bit peeved that he had died earlier than his given time. _Bloody Davy Jones_.

"Ah. Well, there are certain things that can alter the continuation of our planned world." _Our planned world_. It seemed rather depressing to James Norrington that everyone had their deaths planned since before the moment of their conception—that people simply marched blindly onwards with a false sense of free will when in actuality they were ensnared in a fate beyond any control—just as far in as they'd ever be out. Or something like that. "Any deities—minor or major—are a part of this. And that is where the Sea Goddess comes in." Call-me-Dave sighed lightly and slightly irritatedly, as if his six-year-old son had just tripped over his own feet after continuous warnings not to run around so much, instead of a Goddess of the Ocean changing the very groundings of Fate.

"Calypso," James hazarded.

"Yes. She was a, shall we say, a veritable _spanner in the works_," Call-me-Dave said disdainfully, as if he had any room to look down at her. Not truly understanding the metaphor, James simply nodded, trying to look understanding whilst he wondered what on earth he had arrived here for. This box room (which could be turned upside-down at will and not be noticed at all...) was beginning to make him feel edgy, so hopefully he could leave this place. "In any case, all of your "destinies" were _altered_ by that Type Three Deity and now there is a lot of _messiness_." James could hear those slightly derisive quotation marks in his very tone, as if the word _destiny_ were some sort of juvenile gibberish word used to make children behave.

"So what happens when a deity causes _messiness_, then?" James asked, knowing full well that he was beginning to sound a little bit snarky, but not caring one bit. His plan had been to remain polite and earnest and obedient for as long as possible in the face of Call-me-Dave and his entourage. "Surely there are... back-up plans, of a sort?"

"Of course," Call-me-Dave said, it coming out a little bit like a snap—oh, dear! Even the dapper Davey-wavey had his raw nerves, then. He adjusted his diamond-print jumper with a clearing of the throat. "We merely hold you here until everyone on your list is dead. You were all supposed to die together, but you did not. So we have to collect you all inside of this room for a while, but, ah..." James did not like a 'but' in a situation such as this. Or an 'ah', to be honest. An 'ah' suggested that Call-me-Dave was trying to think of a way to put some terrible news in a good way. "Have I explained the time skips?" he asked.

"Yes," James said, slightly uncomfortably because he didn't really understand it. Time was... well, time was _time_. How could you rearrange it? Apparently, the time in the death world was the same all over, stretched like clingfilm over the... oh, he had stopped listening about there, especially when the word 'clingfilm' came into play. Whatever it was.

"Well—it's a long story. Some more people from that batch have died however—here, let me take us there..." James was beginning to realize how much he disliked the word _batch_. He, Davy Jones, Cutler Beckett and Jack Sparrow were hardly the same make of muffin.

So to speak.

-------

_Isn't this delightful?_ Cutler Beckett thought, looking around the room. They contained people who—at best—could be called _not his favourite people in the world_. Davy Jones: in his human form, yet looking just as grumpy as he would with all of those tentacles. James Norrington: no longer his inferior, and thus no longer finding it necessary to be respectful. Weatherby Swann: doubtless that he himself wasn't exactly on Weatherby's list of buddies. Mercer: no longer his inferior, remaining at least somewhat respectful, but he had failed to keep control of Jones' ship and thus failed him and started the entire business of death with his own incompetence! Certainly, the series of events wasn't his fault, and Beckett supposed that Mercer _had_ died too, but laying the blame on somebody was easiest to do if you laid it thick.

Call-me-Hugh, Call-me-Dave, Call-me-Brad, Call-me-Dan and Call-me-Phil were all moving around like a flock of pigeons, each of them eerily similar in their mannerisms, right down to their thin little spectacles and weak little words. They fluttered around each other's ears, talking in hushed tones, which wasn't very comforting. Beckett wondered, vaguely, whether this unhappy family of theirs would be spending the rest of eternity together. _God help them_. The Call-mes all stopped their fidgety nattering and turned to look at our five dead heroes. Or perhaps anti-heroes would be best in the case of most of them.

The silence was awkward. After all, the current statistics of the matter were that two people had murdered two of the people in the room, one had ordered one dead, one of them had used every single other and most of them had wished each other dead at some point. So, to be honest, none of them were feeling particularly talkative, and each had pushed their chairs as far from each other as possible. Apart from perhaps Mercer. Yes, Beckett decided, it was good to have someone on his side. Although Mercer was looking less loyal every second.

In the red corner there was Norrington, looking sullen but keeping quiet. In the blue corner there was Weatherby Swann, looking bewildered as he always seemed to these days. In the not-green-anymore corner sat Davy Jones, all squint and no squid in his uncursed form. If Beckett had ever dared hope that death would have softened his temper, he was a fool—Davy was positively glowering, though more in the manner of an upright gentleman being told that the hotel had no room service than the rage of a thousand sinning souls. Perhaps he, too, was feeling indignant about how utterly boring this entire death business was... Davy was, after all, the ex-boyfriend of a goddess. Maybe he felt that he merited some form of _special_ treatment. _No favouritism in death_, Beckett thought, a touch smugly. Yes, that brought you nicely to what Beckett would call the purple corner: he and Mercer. Funnily enough, "I might need him to back me up after we die" hadn't been high on Beckett's list of Reasons to be Nice to Mercer, but he was wishing that he had perhaps added it. Or even created such a list in the first place.

"Well, we have a bit of a puzzler, here," Call-me-Brad said, tapping his chin. "We simply can't send you off to the land of the dead without the rest of your _cluster_."

"So what do we do? Sit around waiting for the others to die?" Beckett asked, incredulously. "You have five out of seven, isn't that enough?" _Even after I die, Jack Sparrow and his ilk won't stop making life... well, metaphorical "life"... harder for me_, Beckett thought tiredly. They had to wait for Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth Swann and Hector Barbossa to die. To be honest, Beckett had seen a good forty or fifty years left in Elizabeth Swann. He could only hope that someone chose to murder that wretched girl. But he could hardly depend on _that_.

That was when another thought occurred to the devious Cutler Beckett. He'd murdered before. Plenty of times. Given, he'd mostly told Mercer to do it—but he had Mercer with him, after all. Also given, he'd been _alive_ back when he'd last ordered anyone killed. But he remembered Call-me-Hugh's words: _so that they don't come back, of course_. This place was apparently close to the living world.

_I am a genius_, Beckett though to himself, rather smugly: and not for the first time.

* * *

**NB**: Good to see some old faces in the reviews-- and it's always good to meet new fellow fan-ficcers as well. 8)

**NEXT TIME:** _Jack__ had had the good grace to steal a puny dinghy and get nicely out into the open, where he could be spotted a mile off. Convenient. Perhaps... _too convenient_? (Hector Barbossa has known Jack Sparrow for a_ long _time.)_


	3. Existential Matters

Chapter Three: Existential Matters.

What could she do but go back to her post as Pirate King? Will was gone and that was all very sad, but she had to move on, and move on she did—with as much briskness as possible. Nobody asked her about Will, and she was glad about that: no touchy-feely crying business, it was simple and clean and left where it was. Back on board the _Empress_, she efficiently gave orders to set sail for Tortuga and busied herself looking at maps and charts: over her time working on board ships, she had managed to memorize quite a lot of the world, but those tricky little countries tucked away in the middle of other countries really could be a bother. Then again, why was she learning these landlocked countries that she would probably never visit?

Well, it was something to do, wasn't it?

Elizabeth Sw- _Turner, it's Elizabeth Turner now_- knew that she had to think up some kind of plan. But what would that be? Head to Tortuga and hope? Sail around looting and making things up as they went along? Jack and Barbossa were well gone. Everyone else was either dead, or... misplaced. She knew that her crew respected her well enough, but being a Woman (and thus incapable of doing much other than cooking, knitting and smiling in an understanding manner), she had so much more of a hard time keeping her reputation straight. Reputation mattered vast amounts when it came to piracy—as well as any other 'respectable' trade. Hector Barbossa was living proof. And Jack Sparrow, of course. Come to think of it, Cutler Beckett was also a strong contender for this one.

James Norrington had taken one hit to his reputation and look where it had gotten him—from proud Commodore to stinky, dirt-streaked, rum-ridden, bum-faced tramp. In a manner of speaking. She sighed, remembering what he had done: without him, none it would have happened, none of it would have played out the way that it did and she would probably be dead. He was dead instead. Why did it seem to be that every man she ever kissed died within the hour? It just wasn't fair. Though Will wasn't _dead_, he was _indisposed_...

-------

Go about their usual looting, or find Sparrow. Go and find Sparrow, or loot. It was quite a touch decision, really. He had the crew now; together they could loot, do piratey things, live a life of riley, uncursed; and tracking down Jack Sparrow was bound to be vastly more complicated than trying to find a needle in a pin factory. But, well, Aqua de Vida. The Fountain of Youth. Well, not exactly youth, but of eternal life. Imagine that! _Never having to die_.

"Head back towards Tortuga!" Barbossa roared to his crew, who began their frantic scrambling across the decks, skittering like lambs on ice. "He can't have gotten far! _Swing the boon, you incompetent dolts!_" Ah, Captain Barbossa was back, alright. Under his rule, nobody slept for long. The old and weary bones of the _Black Pearl_ creaked as it cut its path through the ocean, the dark and patched sails flapping as heavily as elephant skin, the _Pearl_ had seen better days—that was for certain—but it was uncomplaining and doubtlessly the fastest boat sailing on the oceans, as far as Jack Sparrow was concerned, anyway. And Barbossa felt inclined to agree with him. He had manned many a ship in his time, yet none of them had been as pliable, as graceful and as compliant as the _Pearl_. To be honest, he had grown quite fond of it... and as had Jack.

"Dinghy ahoy!"

Well, wasn't that nice of him—he hadn't even vanished into the filthy back streets of Tortuga to forge dirty deals with dirty dealers: he had had the good grace to steal a puny dinghy and get nicely out into the open, where he could be spotted a mile off. Convenient. Perhaps... _too convenient_? (Hector Barbossa has known Jack Sparrow for a long time.) Maybe it was his intention for them to find him. He loved the _Pearl_, after all. Maybe, maybe... Jack had spotted them.

Of course he'd spotted them. If they could see that blip of a dinghy from where they were, Jack was obviously able to see the magnificence of the _Pearl_ bearing down on him, even with such a pathetically small telescope (no worries Jack: it's not the size, mate, it's how you use it). Looks like the two of them were going to cross paths again, and they each had something that the other wanted. The thing was, they each also wanted to keep what the other wanted as well as take what they themselves wanted from the other. One way to do things was to convince the other that they did not want what they thought they wanted, but that was for tricky talkers like Jack. The easiest way to do thing was simply to _take_.

That sounded like a good plan to Barbossa. But he had to tread carefully.

-------

"So... do you have any good books?" Norrington asked, a touch dryly.

"Are you suggesting spending the next fifty years _reading_?" Davy Jones finally snapped. He had been rather quiet for the whole ordeal, merely doing a lot of glaring and looking around as if waiting for something. _Perhaps he thinks that Calypso is going to come and save him?_ Norrington thought. The version of the story that he had heard was rather patchy—apparently, there had been a big maelstrom, and Davy's crew had killed Mercer and taken control when the _Pearl_ attacked them and the pirates fought each other and then Beckett's ship had gone forth and everyone apart from the pirates had died.

None of them had a full view, though. Davy muttered that William Turner had stabbed his heart (so that gave Norrington _one_ reason to respect the man) with the aid of Jack Sparrow, which explained to Beckett how the _Flying Dutchman_ had turned against him, and Mercer had told them all rather gruffly that Jones had killed him in a _manner of which he could not bear to speak_, which only made Norrington more curious, to be honest: Davy smirked like a cat. Beckett was the last one out of all of them to die, and when they asked about his death, he merely looked at them all haughtily, told them "It could have happened to _anyone_" and refused—like Mercer—to elaborate.

They all knew about poor old Weatherby's death. Apart from perhaps Jones; well, he probably knew, but probably also didn't care. Beckett had ordered him dead, and Mercer had killed him, so they were not what you could call one big happy family. Weatherby didn't talk much, and had that quiet, baffled look to him of a grandfather who had just been sent one of those "text" message things and had no idea what any of it meant. Poor man. Norrington felt a dash of sympathy for him: especially seeing as their game at the moment was waiting for his only child to die.

"Jones the sophisticate," Beckett said, leaning back in his seat and looking loftily down his nose at the slightly bedraggled Davy, who had his feet up on another chair that one of the Call-mes had pulled out for themselves. The Call-me had not bothered asking Jones to move his heavy, grimy boots. "Do you even know the alphabet?" Of course, in Beckett's mind, it was fixed fact that Davy Jones would never be a sophisticate: he had, after all, broken a teacup.

"What I know is that people who make comments like that to me end up regretting it." Jones' accent had never failed to equal parts amuse and confuse the well-brought-up James Norrington. _What ah know is that people whuh ma'k comments like that-uh end up re-ga-retting it_.

"So, what are you planning on doing, Jones? Killing me?" Beckett gave a tinkling, cold little laugh. "Rather heartless of you, don't you think?"

"Gentlemen," Call-me-Hugh made his presence room known, and the resentment attempted to simmer down a little. It was stretched tightly across the air, threading them together so tight that it strangled them. They were a circle of murderers and misfits, and they knew it. Apart from Weatherby Swann: he didn't feel like he knew anything at all, these days. They couldn't help but continue to glare. "Gentlemen." Attempting to get their attention was hard enough when Mercer was glaring holes in Jones' head and Jones was growling at Beckett threateningly and Beckett was frowning in a puzzled manner at Norrington who was shooting a sympathetic look towards Weatherby Swann who was frowning slightly in Mercer's direction. "There are... complications."

That even caught Jones' interest, though.

* * *

**NB**: I've only just realized how long it's taking for this fic to get to the main plot. I guess I got carried away writing the Beckett-Norrington-Mercer-Weatherby-Davy hate pentagon! Not long now, though... thanks to all readers for, er, reading.

**NEXT TIME:** _"Impossible," Call-me-Brad looked faintly horror-struck at the very thought of it. "Completely impossible. We- we cannot- there is no way..." _


	4. Return Tickets

Chapter Four: Return Tickets.

He'd seen death—he'd seen it and known it. He had sailed alongside it for ten years, he had battled it for twenty, and he had controlled it for near thirty. To Davy Jones, death was something that happened all of the time, all around him: the _Flying Dutchman_ had smelled of death, reeked of it. Musty and milky. Death had happened all of the time. All of those sailors, freezing and bleeding, and then his very question... _do you fear death?_ People agreed, people disagreed, and some simply dithered until he cut them down. _Do you fear that black abyss?_

It didn't look much like a black abyss to him. In fact, there were crackly halogen light strips banged onto every ceiling... not that he knew what they _were_. Death was, to be honest, a bit of a disappointment. Had _he_ feared death? No. No, no, of course not. He had relished the thought of it, in an odd sort of way. _Heartache too much to live with but too little to cause him to die_. Huh. And then death turned out to be _a waiting room with no magazines_. How did these things happen? He had at least hoped for something more... grand.

Then again, perhaps grand came in when they arrived at this 'land of the dead' place. Pillars of fire, stalactites, the real deal.

"I am afraid," Call-me-Phil stepped in, "That you have fallen through... ah... a _gap in the system_." The room's mood temperature went from low to Antarctic. "We have managed to get a great deal of the rearranging done, but you five... well... to be completely honest, we don't really know what to _do_ with you."

"Just send us over to the land of the dead," Beckett snapped. "Surely it isn't _that_ hard."

"Impossible," Call-me-Brad looked faintly horror-struck at the very thought of it. "Completely impossible. We- we cannot- there is no way..." He was saved by Call-me-Hugh, who had become more used to Beckett's demanding nature.

"The system must be obeyed," Call-me-Hugh said tartly. "Otherwise there's no _point_. However..." He flustered about with an alarmingly large sheaf of papers. "However, we are not sure whether we have the, hm, _resources_ to keep you all here _comfortably_ for the next fifty years..." _So what are you going to do?_ Davy thought moodily, _Keep us here _un_comfortably?_ The others all sat forwards in their seats, listening eagerly to what fate awaited them.

However, they were greeted with nothing more than silence. Call-me-Hugh returned to his paper with the air of someone who had just accomplished something.

Which, in Davy's most humble opinion, he was _not_.

"So are you going to, uh, maybe... well, are you going to... or are you, because you said... or have you... where are we going to... uh...?" Weatherby Swann's contribution earned him nothing more than several confused looks. Beckett cut over his dithering.

"_I_ have an idea," he said. There were a few repressed groans from the others inside of the room: Davy felt a smug smile tugging at his lips when he realised one of the groaners was Mercer. After frowning at his fellow dead, Beckett returned to his fantastic idea. "The land of the living is not that far away, you say. So why don't you just go in there, tip the odds?" There was a silence. Beckett decided to clarify what he meant. "As in kill them."

There was a splutter from Weatherby Swann and Norrington was just about to voice his disapproval when Call-me-Phil alarmed them all by speaking unexpected words.

"That is not such a bad idea."

"That is a terrible idea!" Norrington snapped, his gaze flicking between Call-me-Brad's spectacles and Beckett's triumphant expression. "You cannot go back into the land of the living—meddling—changing things..."

"It's exactly what the Sea Goddess did, meddle and change things," Call-me-Hugh said with barely disguised disdain.

"So, what? _You_ are going to go back into the land of the living and kill them?" Norrington forced out a derisive laugh. It was true, these officials of the dead looked more like accountants than murderers. Beckett opened his mouth to protest when he found there was no need to as Call-me-Hugh continued speaking.

"We are already _officially registered_ as Dead," Call-me-Hugh drew his spindly self up to his not-so-grand full height. "And as such there is _no_ way we can go back to the land of the living and _so on_. However, it is _different_ for you five..."

Beckett had a wild gleam in his eye.

Davy found himself somewhat entranced by the manic passion in the ordinarily stiffly-held Englishman. _Quite sensationally insane_, he thought. Privately. To himself.

"I will do it," Beckett said immediately.

"This is madness," Norrington meant to exclaim it but found himself mumbling it under his breath instead, so that nobody heard him besides himself. Which was not a lot of use, as he had already known what he had told himself. Weatherby finally seemed to catch up.

"But does this mean... is this... are you, I mean, does this mean that you are going to kill my daughter?" Norrington looked up at his watery old eyes. Oh, bless the befuddled man! He realized that there was nothing else that he could do. He sat up straight and addressed the room in general.

"I will help," he said loudly.

He found everyone looking at him quite oddly.

"You?" Beckett said at the same time as Davy. They exchanged a look that was half irritation, half embarrassment, and then turned back to Norrington, who was nodding earnestly. "Why on Earth would you want to help?" Beckett asked, wrinkling his nose. "I would rather have Mercer-."

"I want to kill Jack Sparrow," Norrington said, using as dark a voice as he could. His heart fluttered as the lie left his lips. Could the Call-mes—as fallible as they seemed—tell when someone was lying? Did they know his true intentions? To rescue Elizabeth, to forewarn the others of Beckett's hellbent plan? He realised that he was under harsh scrutiny and tried to fend off the glares digging into his own eyes.

"How many shall we send back?" Call-me-Dave said as an aside to Call-me-Hugh.

"I'm not sure," Call-me-Hugh looked around the room. "I _do_ think that Beckett would be able to manage _perfectly_ well on his own when concerning the murders of three people that he knows..." Norrington, who had heard this, leapt up.

"No," he said. "Let me go as well. Please."

"Don't," Beckett said tetchily. "He's _useless_."

"I am not," Norrington glared at him. "I got you the heart of Captain Jones, didn't I?" He shivered and turned around to find Davy glaring at him hard enough to smoulder holes into his head.

"What a _delightful_ bunch," Call-me-Phil muttered distinctly in the silence that followed.

"Just let me do it. If I take too long—or fail," Beckett sneered as if the very thought were impossible, "Then you can send Norrington here after me. What are, as such, the restrictions of this task?" He looked intelligently at the Call-mes, who seemed to have an affinity to the heartless, efficient attitude that Beckett was taking.

"We can _only_ send you into the living world for three days," Call-me-Dave stepped forwards with a clipboard, and was using a ball-point pen to scratch at a spot of limp hair behind his right ear, eye darting to Call-me-Hugh momentarily as if for confirmation. He gave a discrete nod. "Then the magic runs _dry_ and your corpse will once again drop, and your soul return to this very room." Beckett seemed slightly alarmed for a moment.

"My corpse."

"Well, of course," Call-me-Brad tutted. "We can _hardly_ give you a _new_ body, can we?"

-----

And so—after many protests from James Norrington, another attack of the dithers from Weatherby and some unnecessarily sarcastic comments from Davy, Beckett was led out of the room along with Call-me-Hugh and Call-me-Dan. The other four dead, as well as the three remaining Call-mes, sat in stony silence for a moment. James' hands clenched on his lap, feeling like he had failed Elizabeth. Weatherby stared emptily at the floor. Mercer shuffled on his seat. Davy Jones continued leaning, his legs still up on the footrest that was Call-me-Dave's chair.

"We can watch his progress in the real world," Call-me-Phil said with a small, bitter smile. James was beginning to pin him down as the callous one of the bunch. They all watched as Call-me-Phil pulled down on a handle that appeared mid-air and with a rolling, snapping sound, a large sheet of white appeared in front of them. An executive-looking projector popped up at the other side of the room, pointing at the screen.

"Let me join him," James said. "Three days is nowhere near long enough for a single man to go out and kill three people."

"If he has made no progress within the first day, we will send the rest of you out," Call-me-Dave said. "It'll keep him better motivated to not tell him this, though."

"I don't want to go out and kill these people," Davy said, frowning. "I couldn't care less." _He's probably used to waiting_, James thought, secretly. As if he could see his thoughts, Davy squeezed out a glare just for him. James hurriedly looked back at Call-me-Dave.

"So I can go out into the living world and help, tomorrow?" he asked brightly. A nod. James felt relief fill him up. _Excellent_, he thought, _As long as Beckett doesn't manage to find Elizabeth during this one day..._ His heart contracted at the thought. He hurried to soothe himself. _But he won't. He'll go after Sparrow first._

-----

"This will take me back to the land of the living?" Beckett asked, looking at the strange doorway in front of him. It was mostly see-through, showing him nothing but the wall behind it, but there was an odd ripple in it. A strange mess of multiple colours that were only just visible. The very air seemed to wobble and move. Call-me-Hugh nodded.

"You will return directly to your body. Now, there are advantages to being an animated corpse." _I don't doubt it_, Beckett thought, itching to step through the doorway back to life. "First of all, of course, there's the lack of need to eat, sleep of breathe, which is always handy. There are a couple of other things that I am sure you will discover." He cleared his throat. "However, there are a few things that you should be aware of. Decomposing and so on, amongst _other_ things..."

"How much longer are you going to talk for?" Beckett asked mildly, inspecting the doorway in front of him without taking in any of what Call-me-Hugh had just said. He reasoned in his mind that nothing Call-me-Hugh had to say could possibly be of any use to _him_. His own arrogance could be a downfall, sometimes.

"Well, it will take about twenty more minutes to describe the full effects of what coming back to your corpse will do to you-."

"In that case, I will discover for myself. Goodbye." And on that note, Beckett stepped through the porthole, and with a _glooping_ sound, he was gone. Call-me-Hugh turned to look at Call-me-Dan, frustration etched onto his features.

"Oh _dear_..."

* * *

**NB**: Rash, Beckett, very rash-- then again, it's not like there's going to be anything waiting for him that _he_ couldn't deal with... right?

**NEXT TIME:** _"Now, remember that we will be watching you. But I really can't chat—contact between the living world and ours is ridiculously expensive, and I don't want a bill as long as my arm. The department just doesn't get as much funding as it used to."_


	5. Physical Reunion

Chapter Five: Physical Reunion.

For a moment everything was chaos, a mess of senses. Momentarily Beckett was certain that he could _taste_ blackness, _hear_ wetness, _see _heaviness... around him, things fizzled and sparked, and echoing sounds resounded through his brain. Inky blackness, blotted with florescent shapes, rammed hard into his eyes. A deep terror warped into his bones as the confusion became almost _painful_. Wires were being crossed all over his mind: for a few moments, he lost all sense of identity.

He was not Cutler Beckett. He was not a human. He was just this cloud of feelings, this tangled ball of senses. Like light breaking through a dense jungle canopy, chinks of the world began to be revealed to him. Parts of his body felt wet, other parts of his body felt dry; sensory nerves all over his skin blew hot and cold. Literally.

Trying to drag his eyes open was an impossible task, let along moving any other part of him: what _was_ 'him', anyway? That was something he would have liked to know right about then. A spectacular fizzling screen of white came down over his entire vision, making him open his mouth wide. Currents of water moved through his throat. He couldn't tell if his eyelids were open or closed. Who cared?

The pain was starting to filter through. Parts of him stung; he could feel a deep, dull ache in his chest. His entire left arm had no feeling, whereas his right was prickling. He tried to move his head, his legs, anything. It was all a confused mess. An attempt to twist his head to the side resulted in his back arching.

Everything was mixed up. He told his body to do one thing and it did something else. He could still taste blackness, and the sound of the dark was giving him a headache. The white screen before his eyes flashed with colours and images. His memory deserted him, returned, and then left again like the tide.

So much turmoil within one man, within one moment—or had hours passed? He had no orientation, he had no senses that he could trust, in fact half of the time he didn't even know who he was. And in the brief moments that his memories visited him again and again, he would only just grasp at what he was supposed to be doing before it all left once more. Hellish.

-----

"What's happening to him?" Davy asked, more in an interested manner than a concerned manner. Nobody in the room seemed unduly worried as they watched Cutler Beckett's corpse begin to twitch and writhe on the screen in front of them, his back brushing the ocean floor, his eyes opening wide and then closing again. James felt an odd, swooping mixture of fear and disgust at the sight.

The ocean had done its work on Cutler Beckett's body. The skin was a midway between white and grey, leaving it looking like uncooked bread. Five foot four of blue-tinged dough. The skin was dull and pinched. The lips were dark purple-blue, even now as they opened and closed. His clothes were tatty and battered. James could see burns on his skin; dark, ugly blemishes that crawled up his neck and to some of his face, and possessed the entirety of his left arm. His frockcoat had been completely singed away at one arm, leaving it exposed; the skin was black and charred, apart from the fingers, which had somehow escaped. They were white as chalk.

James had to wonder what on _earth_ had happened to the man. He even felt an unexpected touch of sympathy.

His green-blue eyes, usually so bright with intellect, were milky and filmed over with death. The remains of a wig clung to his head, although it was evident that parts of it had burned away. Dead hair poked out beneath. Perhaps what was the most disturbing, however, was that this obviously dead body was now moving about, twitching spasmodically, like someone having a seizure.

"A soul re-entering the body is a complicated task," Call-me-Hugh suddenly re-entered the room, tight-lipped and looking stern. "If he had listened to me he would know that. Regaining control of his body could take up to half an hour."

_Half an hour of _this_? _Davy thought, probably thinking more of the entertainment side of things than the pain Beckett must have been feeling.

"If only he would stop fighting against it and just relax it would be easier," Call-me-Hugh sighed, "But he wouldn't listen to me."

"Do you think it, er, well, that is to say, do you think..." Weatherby cleared his throat. "Do you think that he is in pain?" Call-me-Phil had looked at him calmly throughout his whole dawdling speech. He gave a curt and utterly unsympathetic nod. Weatherby's next concise statement surprised everyone: "Good."

-----

Sporadic bursts ran through him, composed of many feelings. Heat, cold, ticklish tingles and crippling pain. Every emotion under the sun seemed to be bursting from him, panic that crushed his abdomen, euphoria that made his head spin, hate that tightened his throat. Images danced in front of his eyes that he could not decipher. Reality or dreams?

He saw the most irrational things. Big, cushy, green-leather chairs. Dolphins swimming through sky. Ships crashing through a maelstrom. Bank statements. Stars falling to Earth.

One thing to be glad about was that the bursts of time in which he remembered things were getting closer and closer together, meaning that for the majority of the time he had at least an inkling about who he was. Cutler Beckett. _Lord_ Cutler Beckett. What had just happened? Where was he? One moment he remembered that he had died, the next, all he could remember were cannons exploding and splinters dancing through the air in front of him and a ripping pain through his entire body...

Every time he grabbed at the memory of Call-me-Hugh, it slipped away. It was like trying to see something without looking at it. Trying to read with unfocused eyes. The moment he focused, it was gone. His head felt like it was going to split apart. Colours merged and rolled. Sounds boomed and whistled.

-----

"Forty minutes," Call-me-Dave sighed. "Shall we try talking to him?" He brought out an interesting little earpiece from the pocket of his thin jacket. It was plucked out of his fingers by Call-me-Hugh, who fixed it over the tip of his ear and began to talk.

"Cutler Beckett?"

-----

Then, there it was in front of him: the words 'CUTLER BECKETT?', ten feet high, embossed across the world in front of him. Their colours changed dazzlingly. Beckett blinked. He could hear a voice, somewhere. It was a distant call in his ear. It sounded warped, as if it were coming from far away. As if it were at the other end of a tunnel. Almost as if he were underwater...

"Don't try to talk. I think that it may be too much for you."

Parts of the sentence disintegrated into tastes and smells, but most of it managed to get to his ears. For the first time in a long time, Beckett's body's facial expression changed; his brows furrowed, ever so slightly, in that superior way that he had.

"That's the ticket—it seems that you are, ah, getting more used to your body. Now. Do you remember me?"

Beckett wasn't sure. He did remember an overwhelming urge to punch being associated with this voice...

"Call me Hugh."

Ah. Yes. Of course.

"You died, and now you're in the land of the living. Do you remember? You're on a little... task for us."

On a little _task_ for them? That didn't sound like _him_.

"You were going to kill Elizabeth Swann, Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa for us, if you remember..."

Oh. Well, perhaps it _was_ him after all.

"Just relax. Let yourself reacquaint with your body. It has—changed a _little_ while you've been away, but not _too_ much. It is still recognisably yours. You are at the bottom of the Caribbean Ocean, somewhere off of the coast of Bermuda if I am not mistaken. Can you move yet? Try clenching and unclenching your fists. Slowly now..."

Oh, God. He had arrived in the self-taught-yoga area of life. Beckett sorely wanted to say something, but bolts of pain shot through him when he tried, making his body curl up.

"Now. Don't try to _run_ before you can _walk_, so to speak." Was that the faintest of sniggers he heard? It tasted sharp, bitter like lemon. "Just clench your fists, and unclench. Are your eyes open? Ah, yes... eyesight is usually one of the last things to return... it might not return altogether if your optic nerves have completely worn away..." What? _What_? "Gently, Mr. Beckett, or you'll do yourself more harm than good."

He felt his thoughts threading themselves together. He could think again! What a relief _that_ was. He still couldn't see anything; the whiteness was fizzling at the edges, though. The edges were dark blue-black. He tried clenching his fists. He felt the nerves zinging down his arms, running a relay. The usually lightning-fast reaction of the body was going painfully slowly. But, eventually...

His fist closed. He felt his soft fingernails digging into his palm about a minute after contact. That was how slowly his nerves were working.

"See? That wasn't so hard, _was_ it?"

Well, brilliant. As well as being dead, he was being patronized.

"It won't be long now until you regain all—well, most of your bodily functions. The basic ones. And then you head towards Bermuda, all right? Don't worry about not knowing where it is. You can use your... hm, what to call it... zombie sense?"

-----

The rest of the room stared at Call-me-Hugh in bafflement as he rattled off his farewell to Beckett. "Now, remember that we will be watching you. But I really can't chat—contact between the living world and ours is ridiculously expensive, and I don't want a bill as long as my arm. The department just doesn't get as much funding as it used to." With that, he pulled the earpiece off and dropped it into an inside pocket. Norrington made a mental note to remember where it was. _That might come in handy..._

Anything that might help.

It was _slightly_ amusing to see the usually so unruffled Beckett struggling to move at the bottom of the ocean, but there was still the fact that he looked like something out of a nightmare. Norrington hated to think what _his_ body looked like—he had been dead for longer, after all... he watched as Beckett's arm sent another satiny cloud of silt rising upwards, and shuddered as he saw tiny wormy creatures fall out of a hole in his arm. A fish that had been pecking at his kneecap turned and darted off, sharpish.

How on Earth was he going to pass off as human?

"Zombie sense?" Davy asked, shooting Call-me-Hugh a look. The bespectacled man chuckled rather eerily and dusted his hands together.

"My little, ah, joke."

* * *

**NB**: The living world has no idea what it's in for. Truly. Thanks for the comments, very encouraging as always!

**NEXT TIME:** _"What _are _you?" she asked, cocking her head. The man might have groaned into the sand, but she wasn't sure._


	6. Washed Up

Chapter Six: Washed Up.

Erica Boyd was fishing. It was said that fishing was a man's job, generally, but most things seemed to be a man's job, aside from having babies and cooking and cleaning. And wenching. Every woman seemed to be a wench nowadays. None of those things really appealed to Erica—especially the first. She had had more than enough experience with babies thanks to the abundance of younger siblings that she possessed.

If by "possessed" you meant "had to help take care of". In her opinion, she was dragged in for _far_ too much of that helping business.

The sea was not being particularly giving that day, but she had five mackerel caught already and it had only been an hour and a half, so it could have been worse. That would certainly feed the greater portion of their family. Besides, there were other ways that food was coming into the house. And money. They weren't doing as badly as they had done before: of course not. They had everything to be thankful for.

(Although in her fanciful mind she would really have liked to have gone somewhere else like Jamaica or mainland America, maybe the Gold Rush, to make her money and find her fortune—)

Suddenly, she noticed some movement in the ocean: aside from the skipping, shifting surface of the ocean that told her that the shoal of mackerel were still around. She was sat at the edge of a pier, whereas the movement was behind her, closer to the shore. Something was lugging itself up the beach. An oversized seal? Trails of silky green dragged onto the beach. What on Earth was it? Surely...

It was a person.

It was the _oddest_ person she had ever seen...

Quickly reeling her line back in and laying her fishing rod down onto the pier—she had no fears of it being stolen, they lived in quite an honest little village—she rushed down towards the shore, kneeling on the sand-dusted wood where pier met beach and looking down into the water where the inscrutable creature was coming out into the faint light of early morning.

It had now stopped moving and lay, facedown, on the beach. The overwhelming, childish desire that initially rushed up in Erica's mind was to find a stick with which to poke the thing. But she decided that she had to act more grown up (she was ten, after all) and cleared her throat.

"Hello?" she asked, her voice coming out far more wary than she meant it to. A river of water was trickling away from the man.

The creature—well, person—raised its face from the sand slightly and turned its head ever so slightly, casting her a quick glance before lowering its face back into the sand. Erica could see water sliding out of its mouth, running down its chin, what looked like pints of the stuff. She wondered if it needed some kind of help, when it made a muffled sound into the sand. She hovered uneasily for a moment.

"Pardon?"

"I said, _go away, boy_," the person on the sand lifted his head ever so slightly again and spoke in upper-class, clipped tones. Erica watched for another moment.

"I'm not a boy," she finally said.

"Easy mistake to make," the creature that she had now identified as a man, mumbled into the sand. Erica was beginning to spot many things wrong with this man. First of all, he had just crawled up the beach from the ocean from God knows where, with no apparent need to take a breath. A small waterfall of what she assumed was seawater had just come out of its mouth, though. And she had never met a man with skin so pale it almost looked blue in the half-light...

"Are you all right?" she asked, deciding that she would let his rudeness go. For now. She had still not seen his face—he was keeping it turned away from her. She wondered why.

-----

"That's right, keep your face turned down: you look absolutely frightful, you know," Call-me-Hugh smiled almost maliciously as he spoke into the earpiece. "You'll scare the poor child. Make her go away. We can't have the Bermuda Christian Committee trying to chase you down and tie you to a burning stake, can we?"

-----

Beckett ground his teeth as Call-me-Hugh spoke patronisingly into his ear. He did not need _constant reminder_ that he now looked horrible and disfigured. Telling him once was reminder enough. But no. His teeth grinding set one of his molars loose, and it fell onto his tongue: he spat it onto the sand beneath him. Beckett shuddered and shivered, ignoring the girl standing on the pier just a few feet away from him and attempting to move again. His muscles screamed at him, after a short delay.

"Excuse me, mister? I _said_, are you-?"

"I know what you said," Beckett growled. "I am perfectly fine. Do you mind leaving?" What had _happened_ to him? Had he been dead for that long? His cold, doughy skin—grey-blue and shrunken—the fierce burns along one side of him, the hideous mess of his entire body. He hated to think what his face looked like.

"Well, shall I at least pull some of that seaweed off of you?"

"No," Beckett snapped rather quickly. The seaweed that was currently swathed over him like a cloak was probably the only thing stopping this girl from running away screaming. It was his _disguise_. "I'm quite happy here. Do you mind leaving?"

-----

It was very odd, hearing Beckett's voice coming from that corpse. The four other dead did not move or take their eyes off of the screen as they watched him drag himself onto the beach—finally. He had been struggling since midnight, and it was early morning by the time he arrived. The sun was just beginning to appear over the horizon, crisp and pale. They all watched as the girl rocked on her heels on the pier, watching him and chewing on a strand of brown hair.

"He should get away from her," Norrington commented. "He does not look normal."

"Not that he ever did," Davy muttered.

Slightly alarmed at the thought of witty repartee with Davy Jones, Norrington turned to look at Call-me-Hugh, who was still nattering into his earpiece. Norrington could only imagine the anger Beckett would be feeling at being spoken to like a child—still, it served him right in a way. Now he could see what it was like for everybody else.

-----

Erica found her brows quirking as the strange man made another attempt to make her go away. The whole thing was rather suspect. And did he _really_ believe that he looked anything approaching normal? There was quite obviously something not human about this man—it was either the pale blue skin or the fourth degree burns on his shoulder and arm that gave _that_ away. As well as the fact that he had just swam underwater apparently for a few miles without breathing.

Because she would have spotted _something_.

"What _are_ you?" she asked, cocking her head. The man might have groaned into the sand, but she wasn't sure. After long few seconds, he lifted his head slightly again.

"Will you please leave me alone?" he asked. His voice was softer now. A little more defeated. Due to a lifetime of brothers and sisters running after her sniffling at the slightest thing, Erica did not have many reserves of pity left within her young self—but something about his voice at that moment struck a chord with her. She slithered off of the pier and walked closer to him, squatting next to him. A fierce look of concentration was in her young eyes.

"Are you a demon?" she asked.

"Don't be ridiculous," Beckett said, raising his head from the ground. He still didn't turn to face her—in front of his eyes, swimming in the darkness, the grit that made up the beach glinted in the weak light that managed to get around his head. He looked at his hands—one of them burnt charcoal-black with white fingers, the other one plain white—and sighed.

Perhaps she wasn't being so ridiculous after all.

"Well, what are you then? Are you _sure_ you're human?" the girl pressed.

"Yes, I'm sure I'm human. I've just... been through a lot." That sounded weak, even to him. 'Been through a lot', to her ears, probably did not include death. And a few days of decomposing. Struck by inspiration, Beckett decided to let the lies drip from his tongue like honey. Easy does it. She was just a girl; of course she'd believe the most ridiculous things. "I was in a shipwreck—a couple of nights ago... and then... do you know who Davy Jones is? Well, and then Davy Jones spared my life in exchange for..."

He faltered, on purpose of course. Beckett was not the kind who faltered.

"In exchange for what?" the girl asked, sounding dubious.

"Well," Beckett finally looked up. "He didn't exactly heal me."

-----

Erica froze as his face was finally put into the light. It was certainly... interesting...

So his skin _was_ blue then. Well, blue with overtones of grey. And white. Apart from his lips, of course, which were purple. And around his eyes. Which were rather scary, to be completely honest. They looked as if someone had spilled milk into them. And his skin had this strange, rubbery sheen to it. She wondered what it felt like. It looked like any moment now his face would drip away down his neck.

"Oh," she said. She wasn't sure what else there was to say. Some part of her told her that she should be reacting right about now, but to be honest, she didn't really know _how_. And besides, she was at the age where she still believed in monsters and demons and other such tales: she had been practically _waiting_ for a discovery like this.

"Quite," the man looked away again, down at the sand. "I must look really bad."

"Well, not as- you don't- it's not..._ that_ bad..." Erica trailed off as he looked up again, this time to shoot her a rather loaded look. She shrugged, attempting to get used to the face. The last baby her mother had had, now, that had been one _ugly_ baby. But now she didn't even think about it. She had familiarised herself with it, see? She was pretty sure she could do the same for this man.

If she could just swallow the bile building up in the back of her throat.

* * *

**NB**: Zombie Beckett against the entire living world: it's going to be a close one. Ah, OFCs-- if not done correctly, a scourge of the POTC fandom! And Erica has been done nowhere near correctly! But that's how she likes it, and as do I. Also, does anyone know whether the term "T-junction" would have been used during the Pirates of the Caribbean era? I don't see why _not_, but at the same time, it seems like quite a modern phrase...

**NEXT TIME:** _"He's a crafty one, isn't he?" Call-me-Hugh said, almost fondly. Norrington shuddered._


	7. A Helping Hand

Chapter Seven: A Helping Hand.

"He used me to lie," Davy Jones said, blankly more than anything else. The Call-mes were all nodding as if appreciating a good chess move as Beckett spun out his story to the fishing girl that refused to leave. "How nice of him."

"He's a crafty one, isn't he?" Call-me-Hugh said, almost fondly.

Norrington shuddered.

-----

"So would you mind awfully not telling anyone about me?" Beckett asked, finally deciding to roll over onto his back and sit up. For the first time in a long time, he couldn't help but feel a little self-conscious: he had seen the frozen fear of her expression as she had seen his face for the first time. Nobody should have to deal with that amount of ugliness, should they? He had spent all of his life looking perfectly turned out and presented. And now this. He rolled his aching shoulder blades, keeping his face pointed away from the girl.

"I don't know who'd believe me," she replied. "My mam's always accusing me of makin' stuff up."

Fair enough.

For a moment they both sat in silence. After that particular topic of conversation had run out, there really wasn't much to say. It hardly seemed appropriate to begin making small talk, commenting on the weather and whatnot. Or asking how the other was. Beckett massaged his temples with one hand. After the initial firing off of all of his senses, things were beginning to die down a little. Quite literally. His eyesight was worsening by the second, although as a plus the pain was starting to dull and fade away.

"Could you do me a favour?" he asked the girl. If she was offering help, why not take it? He looked at her, noticing the way her gaze was still straying around his body, taking in the gory details.

"Yes," she said immediately.

Which he found a bit odd. Especially seeing as she didn't even know what this favour _was_. Still, fortunately for her, it was no impossible task.

"Is there any way you could go down to the village—or whatever it is you're living in—,"

"Village," she confirmed.

"—and find me a cloak, or a bit overcoat, or even a giant hat. Just something that I can cover up a little bit with?" Beckett asked. He remembered his role of Defeated Man (Act I Scene I) and sighed, casting his eyes downwards a moment. _I was born for the stage, really_, he thought. "I don't think I can exactly wander around looking like I do now."

"You're right," the girl agreed. "And you stink."

-----

He really _did_ stink. It was the most awful combination of smells. Mildew, saltwater, decomposition, burnt hair, damp and another musty tang that she couldn't quite work out. Now that she was closer, the smell was much stronger, and that much more unavoidable. She tried to smile when his expression turned slightly more frigid than icy.

"My name's Erica Boyd," she said.

He just looked at her. It was a little unnerving.

"I'll try to find a cloak or something for you," she carried on quickly. "My house has all sorts of stuff lying around. Something of my pa's will probably fit you. It might be a bit big, actually..." She faltered at the look her gave her. "Because he's quite big. Fat." He was a scary one, this man. Even without the rotting flesh and blue skin, he would still be quite a scary biscuit. But still, he seemed so helpless, in a chilling monster kind of way.

"The bigger the better," the man said. "I need to hide as much of me as possible, or I'm going to have wooden stakes stuck into me."

"I'll head home now," Erica said, "And I'll find a cloak or a coat or... _something_... and I'll bring it back, all right? Don't go away." The man did not look at her, simply keeping his gaze on the sun, which was now wading up into the pale, china blue sky. With every minute that passed, the watery colours brightened. Erica knew that, soon, the sea would be back to its usual vivid turquoise, and the trees glow like emerald. She did love Bermuda, even after a lifetime living there.

-----

Although from the land of stiff upper lips, Beckett had to admit to himself that this entire series of events had left him feeling rather upset. He did not like to say it—even in his own head—but he really wished that death had been more of a relief. Just peace of mind: an _end_. As he heard the girl—Erica—tramping away up the beach, the gritty sand crunching beneath her feet, he gazed out at the ocean.

Colour occasionally fizzled out, reverting things to black and white. Or green and yellow. Or some other mix of colours. The edges of his vision were cloudy and obscured. He didn't like it at all. He squinted, watching the sun reach higher towards the sky, watching the streaks of colourless sky brightening, solidifying into sapphire. The ocean rushed up towards him with a sigh, before breathing in again, pulling backwards. He plucked seaweed from his body, pulling it off in strands, deciding to get rid of them before they hardened and stuck.

The resemblance he bore to one of Davy Jones' creature crew was not lost on him. He held a strand of seaweed up in front of him, watching a mollusc-like thing plop out of it and onto the ground next to his legs. After a moment, he stood himself up; his body creaked audibly as he did so, degenerated muscle startled at having to work again.

_Hide_, he thought, _I'd better find somewhere to lie low until she comes back. Someone else may come for a little stroll along the seaside... and besides which, who knows if she will return with a cloak, or the local Parish Church Council?_

He wasn't sure whether he could trust her; she was only a child, after all. And so he shambled towards the shade beneath the pier, standing ankle deep in water, forcing his limbs to move. It was very awkward. His limbs were stiff as boards, and apparently not feeling too co-operative. He sagged and thrashed side to side as he walked, head lolling, arms flailing. Rather inelegant. He wondered whether he would get used to moving soon or not. He hoped so. Call-me-Hugh had told him in his last transmission before he crawled out of the ocean that it would get easier with time.

Which was always nice to know.

Now, he had to think of a plan. He leaned against one of the posts that supported the pier, thinking hard. Jack Sparrow, Hector Barbossa, Elizabeth Swann. Each of them would be in a vessel of some kind. Each of them could be _anywhere in the world_. Whose ridiculous idea had this been, anyway?

Tortuga. That was where he would head next. That was where all of the gossip was, where all of the news congregated. It was a filthy nest of all of the worst pirates in the world, all yapping about and stinking and fighting in pubs. His nose crinkled at the thought of having to go there.

Still—now he had a plan. He felt much better. It was get the cloak from girlie, and then hitch a ride to Tortuga. A triumphant, catlike smile lit up his features for the first time in quite a while.

This was when his arm first fell off. It landed in the shallow ocean with a splatter.

------

Even Norrington couldn't hold back a short laugh, more surprised than anything, as they watched Beckett's arm suddenly drop off. Beckett hadn't seemed to notice, but for the last few minutes they had all noticed it beginning to spin alarmingly and get gradually lower and lower. Davy Jones and Mercer seemed to be finding it the most amusing, and the Call-mes were laughing too, in their annoying _higgy-heggy-higgy_ kind of way. Something like Beckett's arm falling off was funny in any situation.

James looked sidelong at Weatherby Swann, who was the only one not laughing.

_Almost_ any situation.

-----

Elizabeth looked around at her crew—they were all stood out on the deck of the _Empress_, looking at her, awaiting orders. Their dirt-streaked faces spoke of weariness, and Elizabeth could see why; they hadn't had much of a time for a break since the maelstrom battle. She paused just momentarily, thinking hard. The ocean rolled and rocked the boat like a cradle. The sky was clear, the occasional seagull whirling high above. Everything was telling her to just take a rest.

The faces remained hopeful. She gave a curt nod.

"Tortuga," she said. This was echoed by twenty more voices, a triumphant cry: _Tortuga!_ Women, rum and fun! The cheer disintegrated into healthy chatter as the mean all scurried off around the ship, ready to set sail. Sun Shuo—a young boy, perhaps mid-teens, acting as something of a domestic servant to Elizabeth—smiled softly.

"That will please them greatly," he said.

"I know," Elizabeth sighed, bringing up a hand to rub the back of her neck, which was feeling rather stiff. "I need a small rest, too. But we will not be staying there for long. Perhaps three days, less."

Sun Shuo dipped his head. Elizabeth had to say that she was fond of him: after so much time spent in what her father would have called 'rough company', a mild-mannered influence such as her servant did her a world of good. It helped to soothe her own fiery nature sometimes. As she thought of her father, Elizabeth felt a plunge of regret in her stomach, as well as a small stab of hate—directed towards no other than Cutler Beckett.

-----

Erica looked around the beach. It looked empty. She could still see the scrape marks in the powder-white sand, leading right up to the gritty area next to the pier, where the strange blue man _had_ been lying. There was still a nest of seaweed there, too. But there was no sign of the man. She sighed through her nose, walking forwards on the beach. A bundle of clothing dangled over one of her arms.

"Excuse me? Monster man?" she called out. The sun was rising ever higher, and the day's heat was beginning its descent in waves. The ocean breathed slowly and deeply next to her as she looked up and down the beach. That was when she noticed the movement underneath the pier. She walked towards it, finally making out the shape of the odd man underneath it and grinning widely.

He didn't look that happy, though.

"My arm fell off," he said.

She wasn't sure whether to laugh or scream. In the end, she just said, "Oh."

* * *

**NB**: Ah, well seeing as nobody seems to know about the "T-Junction" thing, I'm going to go right ahead and use it anyway. It's only for one quick gag anyway, in a couple million chapters' time.

**NEXT TIME:** _"I have somewhere to go," Beckett said. Nice and vague. __"Where?" __"What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?" __"I just want to know."_


	8. The Tortuga Effect

Chapter Eight: The Tortuga Effect.

"Sparrow," Barbossa called over the edge of his vessel to the dinghy still determinedly bobbing below. "Come up here. For a little... talk, shall we say?"

Jack glanced upwards, seeing Barbossa's unmistakeable silhouette, peacock feather and all. He wondered about Barbossa's hats: he suspected that he had them specially made. By a sadist. Sao Feng's map was now stashed safely away, but that didn't mean he was taking any chances. Smiling a golden-glinting grin, he shook his head up at Barbossa.

"There's no way in all the rings of hell I'm comin' up there, Hector," he called up. He kicked back in his dinghy, relaxed. "You know what they say: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on..." He paused, frowning for a moment. "...you."

"You little maggot," Barbossa roared. "The _Pearl_ could crush your little dinghy!" An offended look wound up on Jack's face at this. Barbossa was not quite the king of tact: he looked so angry that Jack was afraid his beard would drop off. "Just come up here and talk! We can come to..." Suddenly, his mood flicked from raging mad to slick and suave. It always annoyed Jack when he did that. "An _agreement_."

"I ain't comin' on board the _Pearl_ with you and your treacherous crew," Jack said, thrusting his jaw forwards. "Scurvey-ridden, boil-covered, ratty-haired leeches the lot of 'em!"

"Hello, Jack!" Ragetti shouted—merry and oblivious—from somewhere up in the sails.

"So what do you suggest we do, then, eh?" Barbossa leered.

"Tortuga," Jack shouted. "Neutral land. We can have discussion over tea and biscuits." He stopped momentarily to consider. "Or at least rum."

-----

"Where are you going now?" Erica asked, tagging behind him in a rather irritating manner. Beckett did not bother turning to look at her, instead keeping the dark brown cloak fastened over him, the hood over his head. His dismembered arm was being held by his other hand. He was trying to think, and did not appreciate having his thoughts disturbed by the girl following behind him. The sun was beginning to rise and he _really_ did not want to be seen by any of the locals.

"Where is the nearest port?"

"Why?"

He sighed with irritation. He supposed, though, that she had helped him to get this cloak, which was making him look a little more normal. Although the fact that he was walking like an intoxicated amputee (the latter of which he practically _was_) hindered him slightly, as well as the arm he was dragging along. _Cursed legs,_ he thought, _Walk straight!_ At one point, walking had been so easy. How had it become such a task?

"I have somewhere to go," Beckett said. Nice and vague.

"Where?"

"What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?"

"I just want to know." He looked up and saw that Erica was doing that pouty look that was so popular amongst the female population, especially when they were not getting what they wanted. Oh, God. Thank goodness he had never had children. "Also, may I ask what your name is?"

"Feel free," Beckett spat.

She looked at him for a moment.

"What _is_ your name?"

"I'm..." Lie or truth. Truth or lie. His mind battled whether to be honest or not. Did he tell her that he was Cutler Beckett, ex-Lord and Chairman of the East India Trading Company? Or make up a pseudonym? Telling her that he was Cutler Beckett would be much simpler, but on the other hand: what if word got out, somehow? What if she told people, and Sparrow, Elizabeth, Barbossa and their ilk heard of it?

Of course, they'd have no reason to believe it.

And just how far could gossip spread in a couple of days?

Plus, she was just a child.

"Why do you keep following me?" he finally asked. "I am heading towards Tortuga, if you must know. Heard of it?" He turned and looked at her steadily. His vision clouded momentarily and he blinked, managing to regain his sight. Being an animated corpse was not as much fun as he would have hoped. But back to matters at hand.

Erica frowned, most probably at the fact that he hadn't answered her question.

"Yes," she said slowly. "It's where pirates go. And other swash-buckling people like that. I've _always_ wanted to go there..." There was a hinting tone in her voice. Ahh. The usual completely hair-brained idea of a youngling thinking of finding their own way. The morally correct thing to do would have been to tell her not to be so stupid. But the thing was, it would be so ridiculously easy for him to manipulate her now. If this girl were to join him... he tallied up the odds... she could indeed help him. Provide him with things such as money, as well as someone slightly normal-looking to go and talk to people for him. If he kept his eye on her, she couldn't tell anyone his identity, could he? She looked at him hard. "Let me come with you: kust on the journey, I mean. I'll look after you." Beckett almost laughed out loud at the idea of this shrimpy girl _looking after_ him. She looked at his arm. "I'll stitch that back on if you like."

Two birds. One stone.

"My name is Cutler Beckett," he said, confidingly. "Heard of it?" Her blank look and shake of the head made his features dip in disappointment for the briefest of moments. "Before my... accident... I was a Lord."

"You sound like one," she said. Not entirely in a good way.

"Well, yes. I would hope so. Because I was one." He blinked at her. She blinked back. "Anyway—the port?"

"Can I just go and get some things?"

"No."

"Including a needle and some thick thread."

"Yes."

-----

Life—and, indeed, death—had a habit of taking turns for the weird. That is the lesson that Cutler Beckett had learned and was still repeatedly learning as they sat in the brig of some merchant ship that would be dallying around Tortuga on its way to South America. They had had to pay a fee, but he had left that to Erica. She was, after all, the alive one.

"That was all of the money I could find," she had said. "Quite a lot. My family ain't rich."

"Well, all's well that ends well," Beckett had responded. He did not mention that there was little hope of this ending well for her, because his time on this Earth expired in exactly three days, and he may even cast her aside before then. It would have been a little silly to mention it, really. Anyway, she was too busy talking to question him.

"Now Charlie is going to have to be in charge of fishing: of course he isn't as good as me but he can catch enough. The mackerel I caught this morning is probably enough for the time being anyway. I will come back to visit, obviously, when I have enough money. I did leave a note, on the door of the pantry, where it is bound to be found, because the little ones—well, all that they do is eat."

Oh, prattle on.

It was quite dark in an oppressive way in the brig, not that Beckett appreciated this, because although his eyesight was far worse by day the gloom did not seem to effect it all that much. Call-me-Hugh had decided to join Erica in her prattling and kept on telling him things about his new "zombie" (what was that, anyway?) form that simply boggled him. Night vision? "Zombie sense"? He sat on a crate, looking around at his surroundings with clear distaste. His arm lay on the damp floor. Funnily enough, he could still move it. He just had to think of curling the fingers on his dismembered left hand, and the fingers would curl. Magic.

"Do you want me to stitch that back on?" she said. She frowned. "Your arm still works, so... I guess it would make sense..." It had to be said that she was rather peculiar. Decomposing arms and the like were not things that little girls like this one should get involved in.

Or the walking dead, for that matter.

But he remembered his childhood: although his parents had recoiled at the very thought, disgusting things such as mud and worms had been absolutely delightful to him! Perhaps adults didn't understand children as much as they would have liked.

"Yes," Beckett said sniffily, filling his voice with as much dignity as he could find. "That would be good. Thank you."

"All right, Cutler."

"Don't call me Cutler. You are not allowed."

-----

Her crew could hardly contain themselves as the _Empress_ cut through the clear sea towards the harbour at Tortuga. Elizabeth knew that it had been a while since they had had a break—very hardworking, this Malayan crew of hers, that was at least one commendable trait she could pin down—and perhaps they deserved it. "We are only staying here for two nights, though," she had forewarned them. "Be back in three day's time—the morning, early as you can. If you don't, we will leave without you."

Their junk looked only a little out of place amongst the other vessels of Tortuga; but Elizabeth was proud of it. With its jade-green paint, scarlet sails and dragon designs, it certainly was a beauty. She turned to Sun Shuo as the crew began tying up the junk to one of the many piers.

"Will you be staying on board?" she asked. "Tortuga is a dangerous place, especially for unaccompanied youngsters-."

"I have friends here," Sun Shuo said, bowing slightly, "But I will stay on board if you wish." Elizabeth was planning on staying on board the ship as opposed to paying for lodgings overnight. After all, she may as well get on with planning routes, making captainly decisions, that kind of thing. Sun Shuo had many times reminded her that she had a tendency to overwork—but Elizabeth thought that that was _good_. Character building. Making up for the first eighteen years of her life spent doing very little.

She looked on as her crew scattered throughout the streets of Tortuga. Somewhere behind her—unknown to her as of yet—the tattered sails of the _Black Pearl_ were billowing on the horizon.

-----

Jack Sparrow smiled to himself as his little dinghy carried him onwards. Somewhere far ahead of him, the _Black Pearl_ was practically up Tortuga's backside by now. But how on earth could he be expected to catch up in his puny dinghy? He brought out his telescope to look closely at the _Pearl_... moving along its side, he could see a distinctive shape... of course, it was Barbossa!

A little more focus was needed to catch the facial expression. Ah, excellent—it looked as if any moment now his beard would explode.

* * *

**NB**: Sorry for the gap before this update... fanfiction becomes easier to forget the more busy real life becomes.

**NEXT TIME:** _"Baby steps," said a voice in his ear. Beckett wished that Call-me-Hugh would go away. Couldn't they see that he was doing perfectly well on his own?_


End file.
